How it Should Have Been
by Cloudsong
Summary: Snape's Worst Memory with a twist.  How it all should have happened.


_ "Mudblood." _

_The scene changed… _

_"I'm sorry." _

_"I'm not interested." _

_"I'm sorry!" _

_"Save your breath" _

_It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. _

_"I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here." _

_"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just - " _

_"Slipped out?" There was no pity in Lily's voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends - you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?" _

_He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. _

_"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine." _

_"No - listen, I didn't mean - " _

_" - to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?" _

_He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned away, putting her foot up onto the portrait hole, intent on leaving. _

_"Wait!" _he called out, his hand flying towards her. Without thinking it through, he took her hand and pulled her down again. It was the thought of her leaving at all that just made him feel so lost inside. Perhaps it was because he knew that if she left now, she would be leaving forever. Leaving _him_ forever.

Being blunt as he was, he tugged her a little too hard, and she fell, into his arms. Her face registered shock, and quickly she regained her own balance, and pushed him off of her, retrieving her hand that he still held. She slapped him.

Severus closed his eyes as her palm made contact with his cheek. It stung, and a loud smack echoed through the empty corridors. He deserved that; it wasn't just that he had pulled her back that had made her hit him. It was all that he had done; he had nearly tortured other kids in their year, hung out with soon-to-be-Death Eaters, and had called her the worst thing imaginable.

When he finally opened them again, and black eyes met green, he could see that tears were pooling in hers. Lily never cried. It just looked _wrong _to see someone that he cared about so much to be shedding tears. Especially the thought that he had been the one to cause the pain; something he had vowed never to do.

"_What_, Severus? What could you possibly have to say now?" Her voice was choked up, and she quickly broke the connection that they had between their eyes. She turned slightly away so that he couldn't see her crying, and from a side-view he could see a tear streaking down her cheek.

"Lily... I'm so sorry." He found himself at a loss for words. Seeing her cry had momentarily blocked any thought process, and he couldn't say any of those things he had always imagined saying to her. "I just... I was..." He broke off, and exasperatedly sighed, pushing a dark strand of hair out of his eyes.

She was silent, waiting for him to say what she expected him to say. He would need to say something other than an apology to save the situation.

Finally he swallowed, closing his eyes to stop from gaping at her tear-streaked face. He knew that any second now she would turn and leave again, and it would be too late. It was now or never.

He eventually got his words together. "Lily, you mean everything to me," he blurted out suddenly. "My whole life was completely meaningless until I met you all those years ago..

"My father was a drunk, and my mother didn't give a _damn_ about me. The kids in our neighborhood made fun of me...-"

"What's your point, Severus? Are you trying to justify your behavior by blaming it on your parents and little kids?" Her voice was cold, and he grew more panicked as he realized that he was losing her.

"_No_, I'm not," he said, his voice coming out too quickly. "But you were the only one to give me a chance; the only one who even stopped to talk to me. Hell, you were the first thing I thought about in the mornings, and the last thing before I went to sleep. And it's _still_ like that. You're the only person in this world that I would die for, and you're the reason for me to keep living."

Though she tried to seemed unimpressed by his speech, her eyes told him otherwise as she gazed over at him with a doubtful expression. "What about your little Slytherin friends?" Her tone was doubtful.

"Forget them. I don't care about any of them. All I want-..." He trailed off, hesitating before he took her hand in his once again. She didn't snatch it out of his grasp this time, just looked over at him again.

He brought it over to his chest, and pressed it against his robes. She looked slightly perplexed, though in a way curious as her eyes returned to his.

"Feel that?" he murmured, not caring how dumb he might sound. All he wanted was her to realize that he lamented what he said - what he had _done_.

"Your heart," Lily guessed, feeling the beating through the cloth. There was an epic silence that seemed to last minutes, where the only thing he could hear was her breathing.

"It's yours." His voice was barely audible, but he knew that she heard it.

And though he loved her in every way possible, both of them knew that it was more out of a friendship that he spoke. He knew that she could have anyone she wanted, and all he wanted at that moment was her forgiveness. Just to regain her friendship would be enough to keep him going.

She suddenly drew her hand away from him, and her eyes were unreadable. For a moment he held his breath, thinking she would reject him and retreat back into the common room. In that moment he wondered if there was anything he could say that would fix it. Perhaps it was just too late...

But all doubts were gone when she rushed at him, pulling him into a hug, her arms tightly around him. He found himself automatically hugging her back, and he knew in that moment that she had forgiven him.

And though he knew that she couldn't see, he mouthed the three words that he would never have the courage to say. Because in that moment, no words were needed. Everything they could say was said, and even what they had left unsaid was obvious to the other.

He held his Lily close.


End file.
